It's a Hard-Knock Life (For a Parent-in-Training)
by nicnac918
Summary: The hazards of raising a child who simultaneously is and isn't old enough to know better. Sequel to Madness (But There's No Method in It)


Lex set the newspaper down on the table, closed his eyes – anger induced involuntary heat-vision was so much harder for him to control than the _other_ kind of involuntary heat vision– breathed in deep, and counted to ten. Lather, rinse, repeat in five more languages and Lex had built up sufficient distance from the issue that he could reserve the yelling for the people who deserved it: Clark, and Lex's own people who are supposed to be on top of this kind of thing, rather than taking it out on Conner who was, after all, only two and a half or fifteen-ish, depending on how one counted, and obviously had only made a mistake. A very stupid, very large mistake.

Maybe Lex could ground him.

"Morning Dad," said Conner, bounding into the room. The two of them had decided on a father-son relationship, ostensibly because of their age difference, though the reality of it was Lex and Clark, as well as Martha and Lois to a lesser degree, had noticed that Conner needed a parental figure in his life. Martha was out, as Conner seemed to regard her as grandmother, and Martha liked it that way, and Clark would have stepped up if he needed to, but he and Conner were both generally happier with their brother relationship. That left Lex, who was more than happy with his new role as Conner's father. Of course, that got a little confusing, since Lex and Clark had also put the brother label on their relationship, which would theoretically make Clark Conner's uncle as well as his brother, but all of them tried not to think about that too much.

"You're going to get me arrested for pedophilia," commented Lex dryly once Conner had sat down to breakfast.

Conner paused in his eating and eyed Lex with mock suspicion. "That makes me worry about your motives in having me live with you."

Lex suppressed both an urge to roll his eyes and one to smack Conner over the head with the newspaper, neither reaction being dignified, and the latter of which would probably, between Lex's superstrength and Conner's invulnerability, destroy the newspaper. "You're the one that wanted to move in," he pointed out instead. Granted, Lex had come to want it too in the month – down to the hour, and that prediction had been so accurate it was uncanny – it had taken to bring Martha Kent around, but Conner was the one who had put the effort in to make it happen. All Lex had done was put together some backstory and the necessary paperwork, a good deal of which had already been assembled by Tess when she had originally handed Conner over to Clark, as well as helped Conner unpack when Lex had come home from work one day to find the boy and all his things ensconced in one of the penthouse's extra bedrooms that Conner had apparently decided to claim for his own. _Conner_ was the one who had somehow managed to convince the no-nonsense senator/frightening DC mob boss to let her darling grandchild live with a man that she quite clearly hated with the white hot passion of a thousand suns. And not cool little G-class stars like our own sun; no this was a hatred that deserved at least a cluster of B, if not O-class suns.

"That's before I knew you were into pedophilia, obviously," Conner sniffed, his lips twitching with mirth.

"I'm not into pedophilia," Lex countered, deliberately not thinking about how attractive Clark had been in that picture of him as a fifteen year old. Not that Lex was into that since they had discovered their brotherhood. Lex had many kinks, but incest was not one of them. "Does the phrase 'late in life heterosexuals' ring any bells?" he asked, trying to bring the conversation back to the matter at hand.

Conner furrowed his brow in thought, and even the dawning comprehension did little to erase the confusion marring his features. "You mean that story I made up about how I had two dads who were a gay couple that adopted me, and then split up when they came to the realization that they were actually straight after all?"

"That would be the one," Lex confirmed.

"What does that have to do with pedophilia?" asked Conner.

Lex took a deep breath in and made an effort to keep his tones even and measured and patient. Conner was only two and even a kid who was usually smarter than this was bound to make mistakes sometimes. "In this hypothetical situation who did you have in mind as your dads?" he asked, intending on leading Conner to discover his mistake for himself.

"You and Clark," Conner said, as though it should be obvious, and really it should, which was exactly the problem. "I mean, you actually are my dad, and even though Clark's only my brother, he's my brother in a daddly sort of way."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'fatherly,'" Lex corrected.

Conner considered this for a moment before shaking his head. "Nope, the word I want is definitely daddly," he said, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that 'daddly' was not a word.

"Either way," Lex continued, deciding to leave issues of linguistics for another day, "would you think it was reasonably safe to say that anyone you told this story to would come to the same conclusions regarding the identity of your dads?"

Conner pursed his lips in thought, and then shrugged. "I guess some people might? I mean, none of the people from school I told it to would, since none of them have met Clark or would know you're my dad because we have different last names." Conner had, somewhat tentatively, expressed to Lex his desire to keep his last name the same because he had grown used to the one he had and 'Conner Kent just sounds right.' Lex empathized with him – the natural flow of 'Lex Luthor' was one of the many reasons he was so against the Jor-El A.I.'s attempts to redub him 'Lex-El' – and had offhandedly stated not being so immediately identifiable as a Luthor might make life a little easier on Conner anyway, and that had been that. "But I also mentioned the story to some people that Clark knows, so they might have made that assumption."

Good Lord, it was worse than he'd thought. Lex took a deep breath in and resolutely stuck to the current thread of conversation; if he jumped around now, he'd only confuse Conner. "And when did you imagine this relationship between Clark and I taking place?"

"I didn't?" Conner said uncertainly. "I didn't plan the whole thing out or anything; it was just something I made up to tell people because my official backstory is so convoluted. That and I thought it was funny and ironic."

"First of all, it is not convoluted," Lex protested. Tess had originally forged paperwork for Conner that included a birth certificate with a mother who had died in childbirth and an unknown father, records for a child that bounced around in foster care, and papers showing that Clark had adopted Conner. Lex had built on that, so now the official story was that Lex was Conner's father, having impregnated Conner's mother when he was fifteen and she was nineteen, which was assumedly why she had never come forward. Child support, even Luthor-sized child support, lost a lot of its appeal when it came with statutory rape charges. (Of course, that would have technically been before the beginnings of Lex's misspent youth according to both Lex's own research that he had finally gotten around to, and Oliver Queen, who had surprisingly proven himself to be a wealth of information about Lex's school years, when he wasn't being an ass – that was to say, when his wife was around and forcing him to behave himself. But with any luck if had all happened so long ago no one would be worried about exact dates.) Conner's mom then died, sending Conner into foster care, just like Tess's paperwork said. He had ended up in a foster home in Metropolis where he met Clark. The two had bonded almost instantly and Clark, with some help from his string-pulling rich and powerful friends, had adopted the boy. A few months later Lex had come back from his leave of absence and Clark, happy to discover that Lex was not, as long believed, dead, had made attempts to rebuild some of the bridges that had been burnt by their spectacular feud over Lex's third wife. That was how Conner and Lex first came in contact with each other, and at some point over the course of their relationship, Conner had managed to get it into his head that Lex was his biological father. Both Clark and Lex had privately doubted the likelihood of that, but they had decided that it was probably kinder to confirm the falsehood of it rather than trying to convince Conner of it on their word alone. So they were both taken by surprise when the paternity test – fabricated with a good deal of help from Emil Hamilton – had shown that Conner really was Lex's son. After some discussion it was decided that Conner should live with Lex, Clark having adopted him in the first place more to try to give Conner stability in his life than out of any paternal desire, and Lex had gone ahead and also adopted Conner, in order to completely legalize his parental rights. Perfectly straight-forward. "Secondly, that's not the correct usage of irony."

"Not ironic in the literary sense," Conner corrected with a roll of his eyes, "Alanis Morisette ironic." On second thought, did Lex really _need_ his newspaper anymore? Though there was still the issue of his dignity… "And it is so convoluted; you just don't realize it because your basis for comparison is your own ridiculously complicated life."

And that might actually be a fair point, but not particularly relevant to what Lex was trying to discuss. "Regardless, I asked you a question. If you hadn't considered _before_ when Clark and I could have had this relationship, go ahead and think about it _now_."

"Alright," Conner agreed, clearly unsure of what point Lex was trying to make, but willing to play along. "Well, Lois and Clark got engaged when you were dead, so it would have to be before that, and before you went underground because of severe hypothermia, and before the whole thing with Lana, so yeah, then."

"And when would 'then' be? How old would Clark and I have been when we started dating?" Lex prompted.

Conner frowned a little in thought and asked, "When did you and Lana start going out again?"

"She moved in with me after Dark Thursday," Lex said, that being the only date actually knew, because Clark had told it to him. "That would have been when I was twenty-six and Clark and Lana were twenty."

Conner nodded. "So figure you and Lana were dating for like, six months before that and then Clark and Lana dated for about a year before that, plus another six months between when Clark and Lana broke up and you and Lana got together and between when you and Clark would have broken up and Clark and Lana got together. Then you and Clark probably would have had to been dating for a while before you stated talking about adoption, so say two years. Add that all together and it's… four and a half years. So you would have been twenty-one and Clark fifteen." Conner paused as his expression morphed into one of sheepish comprehension. "Oh."

"Yes," Lex agreed. "Oh."

"But that's dumb," Conner protested. "No one would actually believe Clark was trying to adopt a kid when he was in high school."

"No, but the right kind of people hear that story and they're going to raise some serious questions about what the exact nature of my relationship with an under-aged Clark was."

"Dad," Conner said with that patented teenaged exasperation, "it's not like I've been out giving interviews about it. I only told-"

"-some of your friends from school and some people Clark knows; you mentioned," Lex finished. "Conner, what does Clark do for a living?"

"He's a reporter… Oh," Conner said, looking embarrassed for the second time in the conversation. "I'm grounded, aren't I?"

"Mmmm," Lex hummed in agreement. "For a week." That was long enough to make sure Conner was suitably punished for the PR mess that Lex was going to get dumped into, but not too long. Because while Lex would probably assume a fifteen year old would know better, it did seem a bit much to expect from someone not even three yet.

"A whole week?" Conner objected. "But I didn't mean to do anything wrong, I just wasn't thinking."

"You're right, you weren't thinking were you?" Lex said pleasantly. "Two weeks."

Conner groaned and dropped his head to the table. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

Lex considered holding his coffee mug to his lips to hide his smile at Conner's antics, but then figured, what the hell, and didn't bother. "That you most certainly did."


End file.
